The perception of visitors of an unspoiled environment underpins the tourism industry making environment protection one of the greatest challenges.

The tourism industry has an important role to play for management of environment.

What is Environmental Management?

The term ‘environmental management’ not only means managing the environment but managing the interaction of human societies with the environment and its impact.

 

Thus, environmental management is not only for the sake of environment but it is for the sake of mankind.

What does Environmental Management involve?

Managing all components of the environment: biotic and aboitic is what Environmental Management involves.

Management of all the components of environment becomes necessary because of relationships between the species and their habitats.

Why Environmental Management?

Hotels and resorts all over the country consume large amounts of water, energy and other items. Lot of waste whether wastewater or solid waste is generated from hotels.

The reason why Environmental Management has become important is that it is a systematic approach to find practical ways or methods that can be used to save water, energy etc and reduce their negative impacts on environment.

A proper environmental management program can be a win-win situation as it helps to save money and preserve environment.

Environmental Management: Win-Win situation

Proper Environmental Management is a win-win situation for both you and your property. It helps to reduce operating costs and improves profitability.

Substantial cost savings can be done with a modest investment.

Apart from cost savings, environmental management guarantees that you will stand out from competition and will be recognized. Environmental Management helps you to get recognized through certification programs, awards and other promotions.

Other benefit is the image of your property gets enhanced with guests that are conscious about environment.

Environmental Walk-Through is from where you should start

The process of managing the environment and its components starts from An Environmental Walk-Through involving assessment of opportunities for improvement.

A walkthrough may be conducted by a single assessor or a team that inspects facilities and operations and identifies the key areas for environmental improvement.

Steps towards Environmental Management

The following steps when followed properly or kept in mind can make you save enormously:

Adoption of an environmental policy Appointment of an environmental officer, Establishment of a team known as The Green Team, Establishment of a maintenance program, Adoption of practices that conserve the environment and minimize the production of waste Development of a monitoring program for utilities.

Environmental Management System

To make your hotel environment friendly what is required is improvement of the facilities provided by the property and its equipments.

The effort required is to improve the standard of operating procedures and training and motivating the staff members for efficient use of resources.

The system that helps you achieve above goals is Environmental Management System.

Environmental Management System (EMS) can be said as a framework that helps the management to assign responsibilities, motivate the staff members, implement the best practices and monitor the performance as a whole.

Other activities included in the Environmental Management System include conducting meetings, training the staff members and monitoring and reporting progress.

 




By: M. Scott Parisi